Tracking on the Field

Racial Diversity and Disparity in Football Quarterbacking

Authors

Affiliations

Magdalena Bennett
Principal Investigator

The University of Texas at Austin

RESEARCH ASSISTANTS

Shishir Nambi

The University of Texas at Austin

Benny Wang

The University of Texas at Austin

Published

November 17, 2023

Abstract

In this study, we analyze racial disparities at different levels in competitive American football: High school, College, and the National Football League (NFL). In particular, we disentangle the selection process at different stages for the most pivotal position in a team: Quarterbacks.

Introduction

The intersection of race and the quarterback position in American football has been a topic of considerable discussion and analysis over the years. Historically, the quarterback position in the National Football League (NFL) was predominantly occupied by white athletes, reflecting broader societal attitudes and stereotypes about leadership and intellectual roles in sports. However, the landscape has been changing gradually.

Recent years have witnessed a significant shift in this trend. As of 2023, the NFL has seen a notable increase in the number of quarterbacks of African American and other racial backgrounds leading teams, challenging long-standing biases. For instance, at the start of the 2023 season, approximately 44% of starting quarterbacks in the NFL were African American, a record for the league and a marked increase from just 25% two decades earlier. This change not only reflects a shift in the racial dynamics within the sport but also indicates a broader societal progression towards inclusivity and recognition of diverse talents.

This study aims to delve deeper into the statistical trends of potential racial discrimination in the quarterback position, analyzing selection at different stages of a player’s career: from high school to college, and, potentially, from college to pro-ball. In particular, we will analyze shifts and selections at these two stages, shown in the following plot:

Table 1. Selection process for Quarterbacks at different stages by race

Data

Sources

To analyze the progression of racial disparity in the quarterback position, we merge several data sources:

Quarterback Stats for College Football (1980 - 2019): This dataset contains data from sports-reference.com about quarterbacks that play college football, including some key statistics such as number of games, passing yards, touchdowns, etc. Statistics from 2017 to 2019 was downloaded directly from the website.
College Football Total QBR (2007-2019): Dataset from espn.com, including 135 QBs per year, their ranking, and other statistics.
ESPN Top Quarterbacks (2009 - 2019): Dataset from espn.com, which includes the top 100 recruits by position (QBs) each year. This dataset includes information about their college selection (if any), weight, height, high school, and ranking.
Player information for College Football (1980 - 2022): This is a dataset gathered by a Reddit user (see here), including information about their position, statistics, school and town of origin, and some sparse NFL statistics as well.
Draft picks (1980-2022): Dataset with all draft picks by year and position.
Maxpreps data for top high school quarterbacks (2012 - 2022): Information about top 30 high school quarterbacks each year (according to maxprep ranking), including school and statistics. This has been complemented by a manual search of the player’s current status and potential position change.
Perceived race classification (2007 - 2016): This is a variable manually gathered for QBs listed in the first and third data source. This is a perceived race classification based on images of the players, with three distinct categories: White, Black, and Other. Even though this variable does not capture the actual race of the player, it will be a proxy for race perception and how this aspect affects their selection at different stages.

We are currently working on harmonizing all these datasets, and adding high school demographic information for each player, in addition to extending the perceived race classification for additional years.

Data Description

High School Level

At the high school level, we are working with the top Quarterback recruits according to ESPN (100 to 150 each year), to analyze their potential path into college football. In total, we have 555 unique high school QBs between 2009 and 2013. The following table shows the characteristics that are available in the data.

Table 3. Variable description and distribution for Top HS QBs (2010 - 2013) (Source: ESPN)

College Level

In total, we have 558 individual college quarterbacks between the years of 2010 and 2017, that are distributed throughout the US as shown in the following map.

Figure 1. College location for 2007-2016 data

We also have the following characteristics for each of the players, as described in the table below:

Table 5. Variables description and distribution for College QBs by category (Source: sports-reference.com and ESPN)

Preliminary Results

High School Level

As a first approach, we will analyze the top quarterback recruits between 2009 and 2013, and follow their progression into college football. By focusing on the top recruit prospects (as defined by ESPN), we are able to analyze the top contenders for QB positions each year. In particular, we will be focused on two specific questions:

Is there a disparity in recruitment by race?
If recruited, is there a shift in position that is different by race?

The first question addresses the issue of potential discrimination on the extensive margin, and the second one tackles the issue of potential discrimination in terms of the specific QB position.

In our data, 80% of top recruits end up accepting an offer from a college to play football, and there is no significant difference by race. In a future iteration, we will add characteristics at the college level to analyze whether there are systematic differences in the quality of teams that students are recruited to.

Regarding shifts or changes in position, however, the story is very different. While most recruits attend college to play football, only 30% of them end up in the quarterback position in college.

The following table shows the comparison between white and non-white top recruits in terms of some of their characteristics. As show in this table, even though both groups are comparable in terms of grade and physical attributes, ranked QBs of color have a much higher ranking than white quarterbacks. Additionally, there is a significant difference in the probability of being recruited as a QB in college, but not in being recruited for college football.

Table 6. Comparison of characteristics between white vs non-white Top QB Recruits (2009-2013) (Source: ESPN)
	White (N=403)		Non-white (N=152)
	Mean	Std. Dev.	Mean	Std. Dev.	Diff. in Means	p
Year	2011.25	1.45	2011.06	1.53	-0.19	0.18
Ranking	50.37	29.20	42.70	26.54	-7.67	<0.01
Grade	76.22	4.22	76.55	4.06	0.33	0.41
Height	6.22	0.13	6.17	0.13	-0.05	<0.01
Weight	198.43	14.27	195.89	16.56	-2.54	0.10
Two Positions	0.28	0.45	0.28	0.45	0.00	0.91
Recruited for College	0.81	0.39	0.84	0.37	0.03	0.43
Recruited for College as QB	0.35	0.48	0.22	0.42	-0.13	<0.01

We ran three different models to analyze the difference in probability of being recruited as a college QB by race. Results show that high school quarterbacks of color are, on average, 15 percentage points less likely to be recruited as a QB for college football, even after controlling for performance and physical characteristics. These players will then move on to other positions during their college years, which increases the disparities in the next selection stage, the NFL draft.

Table 7. Linear Probability Models for being recruited as a QB in College as a Top 100 HS QB, based on race and performance
	College QB	College QB	College QB
NonWhiteQB	−0.126**	−0.147***	−0.149***
	(0.041)	(0.040)	(0.041)
Grade		0.012*	0.013*
		(0.006)	(0.006)
Ranking		−0.002*	−0.002*
		(0.001)	(0.001)
Height			−0.017
			(0.162)
Weight			−0.001
			(0.001)
Avg. Outcome (Control)	0.35	0.35	0.35
Year FE	Yes	Yes	Yes
N	555	555	555
R2 Adj.	0.323	0.355	0.353
+ p < 0.1, * p < 0.05, p < 0.01, * p < 0.001

College Level

After analyzing the leaks in the pipeline between high school and college, we will now move on to analyzing players during their college years. In this case, we will compare the performance in college football between white quarterbacks and quarterbacks of color. From the following table, we can see that overall, non-white QBs perform similarly than white QBs. One key difference between both groups, though, is that non-white QBs have significantly higher rush attempts and rush yards in comparison with passing attempts and passing yards, which could also demonstrate a difference in playing style between both. In terms of touch downs, however, both groups have similar performance.

Table 8. Comparison of characteristics between white vs non-white College QB (2007-2017) (Source: sports-reference.com and ESPN)
	White (N=403)		Non-white (N=155)
	Mean	Std. Dev.	Mean	Std. Dev.	Diff. in Means	p
Year	2013.80	2.29	2014.03	2.38	0.22	0.31
Rank	62.42	35.14	59.76	36.62	-2.66	0.44
QBR	56.33	16.42	58.59	17.63	2.26	0.18
Raw Rank (ESPN)	54.95	15.18	56.73	15.77	1.78	0.24
Games	11.36	1.95	11.64	1.81	0.28	0.11
Plays	451.11	117.95	455.05	117.79	3.94	0.73
Completions	207.82	72.05	186.98	65.54	-20.84	<0.01
Points contributed	13.05	30.62	16.72	32.84	3.68	0.24
Passing TDs	18.04	9.09	16.92	8.61	-1.12	0.18
Passing TDs per Game	1.55	0.66	1.42	0.63	-0.13	0.03
Pass Attempts	342.59	103.29	313.41	91.04	-29.18	<0.01
Pass Yards	2528.98	933.78	2332.30	855.39	-196.67	0.02
Yards Per Attempt	7.28	1.05	7.34	1.15	0.06	0.59
Avg Yards Per Attempt	7.10	1.54	7.11	1.70	0.01	0.97
Pass	35.08	24.67	31.84	24.07	-3.24	0.17
Rush Attempts	69.17	39.68	106.88	46.27	37.72	<0.01
Rush Yards	128.62	257.41	374.86	307.24	246.25	<0.01
Avg Rush Yards	0.80	2.79	3.06	1.87	2.26	<0.01
Run	4.86	9.68	11.13	12.94	6.27	<0.01
Sack	-12.67	5.48	-12.57	4.87	0.10	0.83
Pen	1.90	2.28	1.70	2.29	-0.21	0.36
Interceptions	8.91	3.51	8.62	3.47	-0.29	0.37
Drafted	0.22	0.41	0.15	0.36	-0.07	0.05
Pick	120.35	81.35	86.22	72.88	-34.13	0.06
Round	4.00	2.14	3.00	1.93	-1.00	0.04

Figure 2. SD Difference in QB charactersitics by race (non-white vs white)

Looking at the distribution of performance, we can observe that QBs of color follow a bi-modal distribution, but have an average performance in terms of QB rating that is similar (or even slightly higher) than white quarterbacks.

Figure 3. Distribution of QB rating by race (Source: ESPN)

We observe a similar trend when analyzing points contributed as a function of QB rating. While there is a clear positive association between both, there does not appear to be a significant difference in terms of distribution by race.

Figure 4. Number of points contributed vs QB Rating (Source: ESPN)

In terms of their professional prospects, though, measured as being drafted by an NFL team as a quarterback, results differ between both groups. The following models shows the difference in probability of being drafted (NonWhiteQB) for non-white QBs compared to white QBs. Even after controlling for year and some performance metrics, such as QB rating and passing touch downs, the differences persist:

Table 9. Linear Probability Models for being drafted as a QB for College QBs, based on race and performance
	Drafted	Drafted	Drafted	Drafted
NonWhiteQB	−0.070*	−0.098**	−0.102**	−0.075*
	(0.035)	(0.034)	(0.034)	(0.033)
QBR		0.009***	0.007***	0.004***
		(0.001)	(0.001)	(0.001)
Games			0.030***	0.008
			(0.009)	(0.010)
Passing_TDs				0.012***
				(0.003)
Avg. Outcome (Control)	0.218	0.23	0.23	0.23
Year FE	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
N	558	529	529	529
R2 Adj.	0.201	0.309	0.319	0.346
+ p < 0.1, * p < 0.05, p < 0.01, * p < 0.001

Given that, on average, a white college QB has a 23% probability of being drafted in our dataset, a negative effect between 7.5 and 10.2 percentage points on being drafted represents a decrease in probability between 33% and 44% associated to being a QB of color.

Given that white and non-white QBs could also have different styles of play, where one could be better rewarded because of their play style, we re-weight non-white quarterback observations to match the style of play of white QBs in terms of passing yards/attempts, rushing yards/attempts, interceptions, touch downs, games played, and other aggregated performance characteristics such as QB Rating, raw rating, and points contributed.

We follow Chattopadhyay, Hase, and Zubizarreta (2020) for building stable weights that approximately balance the empirical distribution of the aforementioned covariates with a tolerance of 0.01 SD, using the distribution of performance for white QBs as the target. The following table shows the balance between both groups after weighting.

Table 10. Average charactersitics between white and non-white QBs after Stable Balance Weighting
	White QB	Non-white QB	Target	Diff in Means (SD)
Games	11.49	11.51	11.49	0.01
Completions	211.94	212.60	211.94	0.01
Pass Attempts	348.78	347.87	348.78	0.01
Pass Yards	2582.42	2583.90	2582.42	0.01
Avg Yards Per Attempt	7.14	7.16	7.14	0.01
Interceptions	9.05	9.09	9.05	0.01
Rush Attempts	70.81	71.26	70.81	0.01
Avg Rush Yards	0.91	0.93	0.91	0.01
QBR	56.33	56.51	56.33	0.01
Pass	35.08	35.05	35.08	0.01
Plays	451.11	452.28	451.11	0.01
Points contributed	13.05	13.38	13.05	0.01
Raw Rank (ESPN)	54.95	54.79	54.95	0.01

Finally, comparing the probability of being drafted for both groups after weighting, we find that there is a 0.093 (SE = 0.029; p-value = 0.001) decrease in the average probability of being drafted for QBs of color compared to white QBs, which is similar to our previous results. These findings indicate that even though there could be other potential confounders in play, playing style as captured by these main metrics are not the ones driving this significant difference in drafting probability.